A 4,500-year-old wreck off Turkey may be the world's oldest known shipwreck
Written by an archaeologist on the team: how a pile of pottery jars, with no timber left, can date a ship to the age of the pyramids.
A shipwreck in shallow water off Kekova, west of Antalya, Turkey, may be the oldest in the world, writes Karin Sowada of Macquarie University in The Conversation, republished by ScienceDaily. The team, led by Hakan Öniz of Akdeniz University, tentatively dates it to around 2700 to 2400 BCE based on its pottery cargo. The previous record holder, off Dokos in Greece, is about 4,200 years old.
Nothing of the ship's timber remains. Divers spent four months freeing large two-handled storage jars, many with a raised clay "belt," from a barnacle-covered slope. Some may come from Jordan Valley clays, and their contents could be products such as olive oil, wine or resin.
The findings are preliminary and have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal; Sowada says earlier or later dates remain possible.
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Uluburun shipwreck
After exploring Archaeologists may have just found the world's oldest shipwreck | ScienceDaily, for a famous later wreck on the same coast, read about the Uluburun shipwreck.
A Late Bronze Age wreck from the late 14th century BC, found off Kaş in Turkey: a 15-meter ship carrying more than 20 tons of cargo.
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